This Is Guernsey

By Juliet Pouteaux

A talk on planning law was held last week at the Princess Royal Centre.

THE new planning law will encourage more UK architects to Guernsey, according to Southampton firm Charles Planning Associates.

Company founder Tony Charles attended a talk last week on how the law, introduced seven months ago, was progressing.

He said the new legislation had made life much easier for off-island businesses.

‘The new law is very similar to the UK law, so from our point of view it is a lot easier to work in the island,’ he said.

‘I can see this encouraging other UK businesses to come over.’

His company started working on a local project 18 months ago. When it came to submitting plans, Mr Charles said they had put in the same plans twice.

‘We put them in under the old law and then again under the new law,’ he said.

‘This meant if the plans were turned down under the old law, we could appeal using the new appeals system.’

He welcomed the new appeals procedure, which he said made the system more transparent.

Local architects have also welcomed the changes.

PF+A director Peter Falla said his company had found it easy to adapt to the new law.

‘It is fantastic what has been achieved by the planning department,’ he said.

‘It is a lot more transparent than the old system. We have been very impressed.’

CCD managing director Andrew Dyke said it was still early days to judge how the law was going, but it was looking promising.

‘It can take a long time for plans to go into the system, so it is hard to judge yet,’ he said.

‘There have always been problems with communication but pre-applications talks have helped.’

Article posted on 23rd November, 2009 - 2.29pm